


Pushing Our Luck

by mew_blueberry



Category: DuckTales (Cartoon 2017)
Genre: Cousins, Duck cousins - Freeform, Family, Hurt Donald Duck, Mom-friend Donald Duck, Teenage Cousin Shenanigans, Teenage Duck cousins, falling, luck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-19
Updated: 2019-01-19
Packaged: 2019-10-12 17:30:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17471858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mew_blueberry/pseuds/mew_blueberry
Summary: Gladstone and Della have a few bad ideas that lead up to Gladstone falling off his grandma's barn roof.Inspired by tcsauaskblog.





	Pushing Our Luck

**Author's Note:**

> There was a desperate lack of Duck cousins content so I decided to make some of my own.

   The ground was approaching fast for Gladstone Gander as he fell from the roof of the barn. His cousins were all watching from below in silent horror as he spread his arms and legs in an effort to slow himself down and closed his eyes, bracing for the impact of hitting the cracked and dry mud.

   If you’re wondering why Gladstone Gander, notable lucky wimp, was falling fourteen feet off the roof of his grandmother’s barn, you wouldn’t be the only one. Two of his cousins, specifically Donald and Fethry, were looking on in utter bafflement and fear; Della, however, was looking on in curiosity, as if observing a science experiment, while glancing at her brother, Donald, every few seconds.

   Overall, you’d think that having four teenagers living on a farm in the countryside that bordered the suburbs of Duckburg (or in a large mansion in the centre of Duckburg) was not a good idea. This goes double for children related to the notorious Duck family. However, this was the exact arrangement that was made back when the two eldest, the twins Donald and Della, were only six. Now, at sixteen, they were restless and reckless, as were fifteen-year-old Gladstone and twelve-year-old Fethry, so the cousins tended to place bets and set challenges in order to make life a little more interesting (it was probably the only thing, other than their Uncle Scrooge’s adventures, that could lighten up their time on the farm).

   The challenge in particular that started the events that lead up to Gladstone’s close brush with death was set three years before, when Della and Gladstone noticed that Donald was a mother hen and got particularly het up when one of them put themselves in danger. This encouraged the bored teenagers to challenge each other to see who could frustrate Donald the most.

   “Gladdie, I’ve had a brilliant idea!” Della shouted, storming into her cousin’s bedroom one Monday afternoon during the Summer holidays.

   “What is you so-called brilliant idea, Dell?” Gladstone sighed, eyes fixed on the comic he was reading as he sat on his bed.

   “Well, you know how Don is basically a helicopter when it comes to our safety?”

   “Yes.”

   “And every time we get hurt, he frets like it’s the end of the world?”

   “Yes.”

   “Well, I have a challenge so we can test exactly how far he’ll go.”

   Gladstone immediately placed his comic down, looking at Della with bright eyes and a smirk. “I’m listening.”

   Della grinned and started laying out her plan, with Gladstone interjecting sometimes to add to it. It took all afternoon and dragged way into the night, but the two cousins had eventually developed the perfect plan: to simply ‘end up’ in dangerous (but hopefully not life-threatening) situations to see how Donald reacts.

   Admittedly, this was not a hard task for either of the cousins. Donald and Della tended to go on adventures, both by themselves and with their Uncle Scrooge, occasionally with Gladstone, Fethry, or both tagging along, so Della had plenty of time to see her brother in overprotective older twin mode. Gladstone was also a bit of an idiot, so it was easy for him to get wrapped up in unfortunate situations, even when all he was doing was exploring the farm.

   A year and a move from Grandma’s to Uncle Scrooge’s mansion later, and the challenge was still as present as ever, with Della and Gladstone outdoing each other with getting into more and more terrible situations (although it was a little more difficult due to the cousins being split up). By now, the cousins were also going on more and more adventures with their Uncle Scrooge, as well as getting in more and more danger as they went. It was on one of these adventures that Della noticed something unusual about Gladstone.

   It was after another near-death experience, this time landing in a forest full of naked monkey-like creatures, who seemed to enjoy eating anything that wasn’t one of their own species. The party intended to take a priceless jewel with magical properties, however the creatures saw them at the temple and declared war on them, ending with Gladstone very nearly getting eaten. It was a stroke of luck that the leader suddenly (after Della and Scrooge managed to talk to him) declared they should start eating plants instead of trespassers and let him go. After this, and many other incidents before it, Della finally noticed that it was part of a startling pattern: Gladstone always managed to escape without a scrape, despite always getting into sticky situations.

   That was when Della, once again, stormed into Gladstone’s room on a Monday afternoon.

   “Gladstone Gander, we have a new development,” She shouted, slamming the door open so hard a few pictures fell to the floor around the room, somehow not smashing.

   “Yes, Dumbella,” Gladstone groaned from his perch at the head of his bed, not looking up from the book he was reading.

   “You’re lucky,” Della said, smiling proudly

   “Well done, Captain Obvious, you cracked the code.”

   “Hey! What’s that supposed to mean?”

   “Everyone knew I was lucky, Della,” Gladstone looked at her with a bored expression. “It was really super obvious.”

   Della shook her head, frowning, before smirking at Gladstone. “Yeah, but do we know _how_ lucky?”

   It took a few minutes and then his face morphed from expressionless to utterly stunned. “No, we don’t”

   “And that means?”

   “We should test it!”

   “Bingo!”

   So the two cousins were back to scheming, planning experiments on Gladstone’s luck. This time it took about a week, but by the end of that period, the cousins had a list of experiments escalating in seriousness and ultimately ending up at the ultimate test of luck: Could Gladstone Gander jump off a roof and not get hurt?

   That was the experiment that would end up, two years later, with Gladstone ‘falling’ off the barn roof during one of their rare weekends at Grandma’s together.

   Now, the ground was approaching fast. The wind bashed Gladstone this way and that, while gravity roped him in. As the ground rushed towards him, he closed his eyes, bracing for impact, but, when the impact came, it wasn’t the hard ground he felt, but soft feathers, and no thump came, just groaning that wasn’t his own.

   Gladstone opened his eyes slowly, peering around at the two cousins who’d gathered around him. In his daze, he didn’t realise the missing third cousin, nor properly register the fact that Della was silent and still, even though Gladstone’s luck was successfully pushed to the exact point they’d decided originally. He sat up, pushing himself onto the grass he did so, before regarding the thing he had landed on.

   Donald Duck, the very person he intended to test, lay there, groaning but unmoving. His right leg was bent at an odd angle, and his eyes were closed, but his stable breathing and constant stream of raspy sounds of discomfort proved he was not dead nor unconscious (or at least Gladstone hoped it did).

   It was a second before Della snapped out of her frozen reaction and jumped into action, waving her hands this way and that as she directed Fethry and Gladstone this way and that to try and get Donald to hospital.

   “Feth, you go talk to Grandma, you’re on the best terms with her. Don, stay there, we’ll get help. Gladdie, stay here with Don,” Della commanded, turning towards the main house which was at the other end of the field the barn stood in. “I’ve gotta go call Uncle Scrooge.”

   By the evening, Donald was lying in a bed in Duckburg’s Hospital surrounded by fussing family that lived nearby. Della and Gladstone were watching the commotion from a corner together.

   “So we fucked up,” Della said after a few minutes of silence.

   “Yeah,” Gladstone replied, unable to tear his eyes away from his bruised and battered cousin.

   “He’s pretty lucky, ironically,” Della mused.

   “Yeah, I guess.”

   “Maybe we shouldn’t have made this a challenge.”

   Gladstone turned to Della and grinned. “Yeah… I guess this is character development.”

   Della briefly smiled back. “I guess.”

   “We still shouldn’t have made the challenge, or tested my luck, or any of this really.”

   “You’re right,” Della paused for a minute, squinting at the polished linoleum floor, before gasping and jumping a bit. “But it worked! We found that you luck works so far as to stop you when you fall from buildings!”

   “You’re right!” Gladstone replied, also lighting up.

   “So it was super helpful in the end. We needed this FOR SCIENCE!” Della posed like a superhero, before dissolving into giggles.

   Gladstone giggled with her for a minute before regaining some seriousness. “Sure, but we’re never gonna do this again right?”

   “Right.”

   So the deal was closed with the nod of a head, and the cousins went back to consoling a shaken Donald, who was now stuck with a broken leg and a lot of bruises. But at least he would never have to face one of his stupid cousin and twin’s bets, right?

**Author's Note:**

> For the account that inspired this go to:  
> https://tcsauaskblog.tumblr.com/
> 
> My Tumblr is:  
> https://diamondsnowflakes.tumblr.com/


End file.
